Crone's Notebook: Second Edition

CRONE’S NOTEBOOK

SECOND EDITION

Copyright © 2014 Nancy Talley.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-0416-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-0417-2 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 01/29/2014

Contents

On Art

On Angels

Poems from a chapbook published for me

Etc.

On Family

Favorites

On Friendship

On Grieving

On Love

Folding The Morning Light

On Seasons And Nature

Personal Poetry

On Poetry

On Social And Political Issues

Psalms For The City

On Religion

On Trees

On Women

The White Experience

Lake Sammamish – from my window

Dear reader,

I believe I have written a dozen or so fine poems. However, when I read them over, I am never sure which dozen they are. I therefore have included them all with only a few exceptions. I did delete a few I thought to be very bad.

I have been writing poetry for many years, studied with a variety of poets, attended workshops and been part of writing groups. From time to time I believe the well has run dry and I will never write another poem. Then, with no warning, a poem begins somewhere in the back of my mind. I keep an envelope next to my computer with lines, words, phrases held tight. From time to time I pull them out and see if a poem still lurks there. If it does, I write. The others I toss.

I told my grandson Nicholas that I was publishing these poems so that he and his sister will know who I am. Wise child that he is, he said, Grandma, we know who you are.

Welcome to my world…

Nancy Talley 2013

On Art

I think it was Picasso who said, A work of art is never complete, only abandoned.

If there is a date with an @ before, that is the date on which I abandoned the poem.

It says nothing about how long I struggled…

Elizabeth Bishop worked on her poem –THE MOOSE – for twenty-three years.

An inspiration…

Confounded by crows…

I stand before the paper.

An inner expectation

hovers

my brush balanced and poised

as it is supposed to be

when painting sumi e.

I paid seventy-eight dollars

for this brush -

you’d think it would paint

anything I want it to.

Or even – at that price

like a sorcerer’s brush

paint on its own.

I enter a deep meditation

reflecting on black

as it is the color of crows.

Black, with some blue

and hints of deep red.

…and as much as I know

about painting

and about crows

none of it helps.

Paper prepared

ink-stone ready

this master of the black arts

escapes.

@2008

AN APOLOGY TO HENRY MILLER

The Big Sur is not so much a place as a state of mind.

We go like lemmings

drawn, whether we run off the cliff, or not.

I     HIGHWAY 1 - 1950 CLOSED: SEPTEMBER 30, TO MAY 1.

Mid-August, pulling a trailer

I snake up the coast

curving to the deep cool shade

of the inside hairpin turns

so close to ferns

I can wet my fingers in the springs

oozing from the mossy rocks.

Temporary timbers span the gap

bridge the place where the hairpin turn

slid with the rain to the sea.

This is the time and place to learn -

you simply can’t go back.

Coiling to the outside curve

I lift one hand to shade my eyes

from the blinding sun on the water.

Out and in, shade and sun

sun and shade, in and out

I cling to the rim of the Sur.

II     BIG SUR CAMP GROUND

My parents sleep in the trailer.

I spread my bag on the ground

under the heavy firs.

The stream pours between the boulders

by this evergreen and watery camp.

In the morning I enter the black shadowed pools

swim with the fingerlings over the pebbled sand.

III     HENRY MILLER WROTE HERE

Next day

we wander the coast photographing bridges

wondering how to descend the cliff

where the side roads wind

wondering who owns the roads

with the gates and the locks.

We stop at Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn

a slapstick stack of cottages

with a dining room

leaning at informal angles.

Deetjen shows us around.

Spreading his hand, palm upward he points.

White shingles etched by the constant rains

paint chipped off the moldings

and small dusty window panes face west.

I peer into the room at the table and chair

books in a staggered pile, nothing much.

Deetjen, visibly puffed, says,

This is where Henry Miller writes. He isn’t in right now.

The next day Deetjen bakes a cake

for my nineteenth birthday.

I give no thought to Henry Miller.

IV     1994

Foundation grants and private funds

protect Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn

from sliding into the sea

from crouching in blackberry vines

from collapsing under the weight of history.

I think about you Henry, out that day, prowling

the scalloped froth that laps at the edge of the earth

waiting for words to wash up.

Or did you go to the dentist

all the way up in Monterey Bay?

Henry, I have to confess

I didn’t know who you were. I wasn’t very impressed

with your room. It looked unkempt to me.

V     BIG SUR INVOCATION

Last week I borrowed a book from a friend

mended the dog-eared cover with tape

and took it to bed. I read BIG SUR INVOCATION.

I am sorry Henry

I did not know who you were

when I was young. Not because you were famous.

I think you knew fame

was a silly woman fanning herself.

I’m sorry I did not know you loved the Sur

as a bridegroom loves his bride

as a wild man knows the earth

must stay wild.

I’m sorry I did not know your passion

for this jagged stretch

regret I did not know you sooner

while you sat behind those dusty windows

when I was young.

If there are souls, Henry

I hope yours wanders the Sur

between the cliffs and the sea

down one of those roads with a gate and a lock.

@1994

POSTHUMOUS LETTER TO A WOMAN DIRECTOR

- for Donna

I cannot tell you

how I saw Prospero played

as a woman…

How the patriarchal staff

usually struck by the man

waved as a power play

how it was softened

into profound understanding

of the magic

only women know.

How Prospero’s daughter

came with her love

to her mother

and the she-wolf

forced the lover to carry the load

to prove himself worthy

of her child.

I cannot tell you how Sebastian

now a woman

changes the murderous plot

to a seduction

…and how it worked.

If you were still here

breasts missing

a tattooed rose on the left

and your hair shorn

as a gift to the cancer

you would have loved this play.

I will carry it in my heart

until we meet

and then we will talk and talk

in the angelic night.

@8.16.10

FROM THE CONFESSIONAL - a living work of art by Ben Meeker

Ben’s interest in art and food were combined in a series of booths,

each painted and designed to express a theme.

He served food to accompany the art theme.

I     SALAD AND SOUP

On the wall of this crude cave

stands a corn-dog with an erection

barking – we are all hungry

and the other creatures

bullock or cow

remind me to bow

my head in gratitude

before I slaughter their kind and kin

before I feast.

Folding my hands

I hear voices – not my own

though mine speaks -

an echo, boxed

in a corrugation of diners.

II     BREAD AND CHEESE

Jesus said: Drink this wine.

It is my blood. Take this bread.

My body

is dining in company

not unlike yourselves…

…and oh Lordy!   The bread and cheese!

and here I am with no cuff

to carry home what I cannot eat

from this barred and barren space

where the creator speaks

where the olives are to die for

and there are too many fishes and loaves.

But then, he knew there would be…

Jesus knew the people

would carry dried fishes and crusts of bread

deep in their abba pockets

to a hot, summer-windy hill.

This was the miracle -

that they would share.

Miracles, by definition, share.

What I did not expect was

communion

and this terrible sounding of solitude.

III     SUSHI

This fish

rushed from its watery grave

to my plain plate

is barely dead.

I dip the flesh in heat

cool my tongue with cucumber

clear my sinuses with ginger.

My mouth forms O around the rice

and seaweed

sipping cha…

I wanted saki!

IV     ENTREE

And, tell me Francis, did you eat meat?

How about those birds you loved so well…

a brace of roasted quail

with just a touch of rosemary

sticky almond rice

and poached autumn pears

How about it Francis?

I promise not to tell

these others

who seem not interested in your bleeding feet.

V     DESSERT

Screened and surrounded

as she is by dark red

the color of whores and blood

I admire the shade of her hair

through a screen of lace - black

with flashes of henna

and copper

cheaper than gold.

I concentrate on my food.

VI     THE COURSE NOT EATEN

Buddha would have understood

and been pleased

we did not suffer.

@11/11/01

MUSING

The muse is a demanding bitch.

She is an itch in the back

of your mind.

She will not let you rest

until you scratch the words

down on paper

or napkins

or placemats

or envelopes

or whatever you can find.

1990

HANDLER - for a play by Robert Schenkkan

I

Supplicants

YES LORD!

we stand at the door, offering tickets

in exchange for experience

an offering for a play about snakes

AMEN BROTHER!

about snakes and truth

and love

and hope

about forgiveness in the face of Lucifer

LORD! LORD!

and all the stuff that really matters.

AMEN!

II

Into a congregation of souls -

toes tapping

hands clapping

hair follicles dancing to music

no righteous Presbyterian Sunday School would tolerate -

we meet

in brotherhood and prayer

in silence.

YES LORD!

We sing the singers

dance the dancers

handle the serpents.

Bitten in the throat, we bleed.

YES JESUS LORD!

III

Leaping into the soul of the play

we twist for living proof

it’s acceptable just to be human.

PRAISE GOD!

IV

The next day

mortals hold one of those meetings

in which they try to bottle God -

"What did you think of the play?

Etc? Etc? Etc?"

One man stands to say

I do not understand the play.

The speaker is the kind who

as my mother would have said

wouldn’t know a snake if it bit him.

AMEN SISTER!

V

The women surrounding me

slither in their chairs.

Understanding Eve

our spines grasp the idea of serpents.

Not wanting more responsibility for sin

we are silent. One nods toward the man

and whispers, Poor thing.

I consider sending the man a snake

but would not want the serpent to suffer.

VI

God is not in the proof

not in the understanding.

GOD! is in the experience.

AMEN BROTHER!

AMEN SISTER!

@6/17/02

On Angels

I am moth; I am light. I am prayer and I can hardly see.

From HOLY THE FIRM by Annie Dillard

Prologue:

I do not know why angels

take people so seriously

while people do not take angels seriously at all.

HIGHWAYS

Pearblossom Road 1963

A shimmering on the air

threaded with silver

fine lines of lightness

a living throbbing silence

an air full of being

quivering between the hills

above the valley floor.

Held to the roadside by impenetrable space

I stopped.

To enter was to abandon breath.

Oroville Highway 1993

Wildflowers already down

only pale lupin by the roadside

where rains wash off the paving.

Grasses turned wheat

roll down the hillside

spreading to the valley floor.

The shimmering comes     again.

Prepared to stop

to lift up mine eyes

to wait for second rites

this time

they let me pass.

WOODS

Angels stalk me

on the path

the wooden path that winds

from the lake to the sea.

They hide

in the limbs of dead trees

lurk in the mosses.

They quiver

just beyond the broad leaf

which lies part way over the water, wet

in the marshy pool.

I cannot see if the angels are green.

They do not sound like birds.

They sound like breeze

still      in this rainy wood

silent.

I turn

but do not hear the wind

only the leaf

after the wind has passed.

CLOUDS

I

When the angels are not bedeviling us

shaping us up as clouds are shaped

I know they are off bedeviling airy moisture.

I know this because while they are gone

the air is trouble free.

It is the task of angels to pull

to turn us around on our heels

until we see through them

and past them

over and under them

until we are angels ourselves

finally whipped into shape